hist.g4.s.his.louisiana_purchase_lewis_clark
Analyze the Louisiana Purchase (1803) and Lewis and Clark expedition (1804–1806) with four perspectives
Identify the Louisiana Purchase 1803 as the US acquisition of French claim to a vast territory that was ACTUALLY home to Indigenous nations (the French could only sell what they claimed; the Indigenous nations had not ceded the land). Analyze the Lewis and Clark expedition 1804–1806 from FOUR perspectives: (1) Meriwether Lewis and William Clark journal authors; (2) Sacagawea Lemhi Shoshone perspective via her own nation's materials and Joseph Bruchac's dual-voice book; (3) York's perspective (William Clark's enslaved African American attendant who made the journey but remained enslaved at journey's end); (4) the Indigenous nations whose homelands the expedition traversed (Mandan, Hidatsa, Lemhi Shoshone, Salish, Nez Perce, Clatsop, Chinook — all sovereign nations TODAY). Vocabulary: territory, claim, cession, expedition, journal, dual-voice, multiple perspectives.
- Construct a 1803–1890 westward-expansion chronology with parallel bands showing continuous Indigenous presence and enslaved-people-brought-west events
- Profile continental Indigenous nations with present-tense protocol, focusing on the 5 Tribes of Indian Removal and additional named nations across regions
- Analyze the Indian Removal Act (1830) and Trail of Tears as FORCED REMOVAL (NOT 'expansion'), Resilience-FIRST, with primary sources from displaced nations
- Apply distance, scale, and route-mapping skills to overland trails — Oregon Trail, California Trail, Mormon Trail, Santa Fe Trail, Pony Express, Lewis and Clark route
- Treating Lewis and Clark as 'discoverers' (Indigenous nations had lived in these regions since time immemorial; the expedition was on the nations' homelands)
- Romanticizing Sacagawea as 'the helpful guide' (she was 16, recently kidnapped from her nation, carrying a newborn — she was a knowledge-holder navigating her OWN homeland)
- Erasing York (William Clark's enslaved attendant) — he made the entire expedition and was not freed until c.1815
- Treating the Louisiana Purchase as a clean land-transfer (France could only sell its claim; the actual land was Indigenous-nation homeland)